


The Road to You

by pedalprince



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Final Submission, Haikyuu Summer Hols, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pedalprince/pseuds/pedalprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Captain_Hughes_ZU @ HQ Summer Hols - For Daichi, fate's role is something to love and hate - but everything always comes back around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road to You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Captain_Hughes_ZU](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Hughes_ZU/gifts).



> Hellooo! I edited this a lot, and there might be some awkward wording still left tucked in there, and this is more of a sweet, short fic, but I hope you enjoy it! Thank you for also doing the exchange, and enjoy your summer! ^O^

“The Red String of Fate is Chinese folklore - it’s the idea of a red string connecting the fingers of soulmates.” Daichi answered with a wave of his hand. “It’s a really moving topic and everything, but it’s honestly closer to myth. Why do you ask?”

“Man, and it sounded so cool!” Hinata mourned, drawing circles absentmindedly on his notebook paper. “O-oh, I needed to look it up for an English assignment! Some people got stuff to write about that’s for real even though it sounds really too amazing to exist, so I sorta was hoping something that cool would be...! Oh, well, it doesn’t matter...”

Daichi shook his head and leaned forward over his book, winking at his kohai. “I said it was  _closer_ to myth, but I never said it  _wasn’t real_. Think on that for a little while, Hinata. Sometimes it’s funner to believe.”

-

Sugawara Koushi hit his best friend with a rolled up magazine, smirking. “And you told Hinata to believe in some silly old folk story? Are you crazy, Daichi?”

“I didn’t think he’d take it to heart!” Daichi insisted defensively, tears springing in his eyes as he rubbed his head.

“Be careful what you say to the kohai! They have a strange amount of faith in you!”

_“Strange?!”_

“Oh, look, there they are now~!” Sugawara quipped, effectively ending the conversation as he strolled away, laughing to himself.

_“Damn you...”  
_

-

 _Fate isn’t something to laugh at, Suga_ , Daichi thought to himself as he stared out the window.  _It’s something to believe in! And anyway, I wasn’t kidding about having a little faith in things like that. It makes life more interesting!_

“Aww, your cheeks are puffed! Upset about something?” Suga’s voice suddenly piped up, bringing Daichi back successfully to the reality of lunch break at school.

He swung his chair around to face his vice captain, sighing. “Not really!”

Pulling out a bento with a grin, Suga began to eat in a warm and comfortable silence which always seemed to follow him, no matter who he was with.

It was always a comfortable silence with Sugawara. It was like the silver-haired setter was a presence of calm, a reminder, a constant; something for Daichi especially to mentally hold on to, to make sure he didn’t forget himself or his goals. It was funny, but Sugawara Koushi was as much a moral conscience as he was a teammate and Daichi’s closest friend. There was something about Suga being around that made Karasuno  _complete_. He made Daichi feel like nothing was out of place - that as long as Suga was there, not a single piece of the heart of the team would be missing or broken. That was the sort of comfort Suga’s presence had, even when he wasn’t saying a word to anyone. Even when it was a normal day, and a normal Suga was just enjoying his food on a spring afternoon.

-

“I’d rip fate a new one if it was real.” Daichi muttered, staring bleakly at the scoreboard. His hands were shaking with the physical effort that the game had taken, and his vision was blurring with the energy it took to keep himself standing. But he was the captain - if he truly fell, the team would as well, and then they really would be left with nothing.

What was loss at this point? Was  _it_  real?

“Did we...did we really lose?” Yamaguchi Tadashi sputtered softly at the sideline, twisting his shirt in his hands.

 _Too damn real,_  Daichi thought, shaking hands calmly with the other team’s captain. 

Heavier than losing, though, was the weight of knowing what the final whistle meant for the team of dreamers.

“Thank you for supporting us!” A broken chorus of voices cried, bowing as their tears streamed down their faces. Karasuno had been shattered at last, in their first match at Nationals. It was a devastating turnout for the hundreds who had come as moral support - but most of all, it was a death sentence to the third years. It was a death sentence the team that had carried their dreams beyond even their greatest challenges, a group that at first could barely hold themselves together at the seams. Loss and luck were not quite sympathetic, not even to their passion or hope, and Daichi couldn’t even think straight anymore.

And at that moment in his life, he quite honestly didn’t care about his stupid goddamn fate at all.

-

Many months had passed since the third years’ graduation. The third year trio had split off to their respective colleges. The Karasuno High team had moved on as well, with Ennoshita Chikara acting as captain, and they were currently working on rebuilding their foundations from the bottom up.

-

“Remember back when I was obsessed with the red string thingy, Kageyama?” Hinata asked, picking up his water bottle.

Kageyama turned from his cleaning and nodded, tilting his head. “Yeah, why? And  _thingy_?”

“Yeah,  _thingy_! Got a problem?! You know what I mean!” Hinata growled, spurring the two into a glaring match that their captain was only glad to break up.

Ennoshita sighed. “What was the point of this conversation again, you two?”

HInata cleared his throat, huffing. Suddenly, though, his expression grew softer as he looked back at the gym. “I was thinking about Suga-senpai and Sawamura-senpai, and the red string thingy, and I was going to say to them that I thought that the red string really was real because life always leads you back to the things that matter to you, no matter how long you spend away from them. And that that’s what I learned when I was doing the assignment I asked the senpai about.  _I forgot to say it though!_ ”

Ennoshita smiled and tapped Hinata’s shoulder lightly. “Still, that was surprisingly moving. Nice job.”

_“Surprisingly?!”_

_-_

Sawamura Daichi had long forgotten about the times he had thought kindly of fate.

The loss from a year ago still haunted him, but it was more muted now, as though his mind had somehow come to accept it. A stubbornness in Karasuno’s old captain refused still to believe all that had happened, but his level-headed side had managed to finally convince him of the past’s solidity. Nothing was going to change, even if he really wanted it to. And even if he wanted to believe in the comfort of a presence that wasn’t there anymore, or he wanted to look his kohai in the eye again and make the promise that they would take on the world together - would he still believe his own words?

-

The cherry blossoms were blooming, and Daichi caught a petal in between his fingers as he stood waiting for the train to come by. He was heading home for the first time in forever, and he was honestly feeling a small sense of dread at seeing his old school again. But the pull of missing his old team and his family were eating at him, and he steeled himself and went to the train station that sunny morning all the same.

Daichi had long quit volleyball.

He wanted to believe in himself. He really, really did. But when Suga picked a different college only a little while after their loss, Daichi felt something in his old dreams totally shatter. His constant was leaving him, and they had  _chosen_  to. It was a slap to the face that Daichi knew no one could ever take back. And he knew, most of all, that Suga was not to blame at all for simply deciding to follow his dreams.

Sugawara wanted to be a doctor. And to do what he wanted to do, he needed to go far away from the things he had always known. From Karasuno. 

From Daichi.

-

“I don’t regret going. And just as much as that, I don’t regret coming back.”

A familiar face greeted Daichi when he turned around and looked up and down.

Sugawara Koushi was standing in scrubs before his old captain and best friend, winking and smiling softly. “Hey.”

“S-suga? What? How did you...?  _When_ did you...?” Daichi sputtered, wringing his hands.

Suga walked over and wrapped Daichi gently in a hug. “Just today, actually. I got wind that you were returning home, and I decided to stop by for a little while. Or a long while, depending on how you see it.”

“What do you mean?” Daichi murmured, his voice cracking. He was trying far too hard not to cry, his eyes bubbling over with tears.

Suga’s laugh was a refreshing one, one that sounded just like a spring afternoon. “I’m going to study to be a registered nurse in Miyagi.”

“You’re coming back? You’re coming back here?”

“That’s what I just said, Daichi!”

“A-ah, of course...! Sorry...”

“Don’t worry about it! And crying is unbecoming of you.” Suga scolded warmly, handing the old captain a travel pack of tissues. “Hurry, wipe them up, alright?”

As he attempted to be classy about wiping his dripping nose, Daichi looked at Suga with the remnants of his surprise. “What happened to becoming a doctor?”

“Ah, that...” Suga murmured, his smile growing wider.

Daichi watched as Suga pulled a red yarn from his bag, tying one end around his pinky. He gestured for Daichi to tie it around his own finger, and as the train came to a stop behind them, Suga’s smiling figure seemed to almost glow in the light of the sun. 

“I learned that fate is very real, even when it’s good or it’s terrible, and that it always seems to bring you back to where you belong. Just took a little reminder from familiar friends of ours to tell me that my dreams were right here this whole time -

with you.”


End file.
